The Deuteronomic Concern for Women

Part 1: The Status of Women in Israelite Society
Part 2: The Deuteronomic Concern for Women

In Part 1 of my study on the plight of women in Israelite society, I wrote that “the status of women as persons of worth and dignity at times [is] betrayed by the social realities present in Israelite society.” In Part 2 of my study, I want to introduce how the reforms of Josiah and the book of Deuteronomy made an attempt at improving the status of women in Israelite society during the seventh century B.C.E.

The best effort to deal with the religious and social problems confronting Israelite society in the late monarchic period is found in the book of Deuteronomy. The book of Deuteronomy was an attempt at developing a special sense of social responsibility in the life of every Israelite for the poor, slaves, women, and for those in society who were underprivileged and did not enjoy the whole benefit of the law.

The book of Deuteronomy is considered by the majority of scholars to be a revision of the Book of the Covenant. The book of Deuteronomy revises old laws and introduces new ones in order to meet the needs of Israelite society in the latter half of the seventh century B.C.E.

The book of Deuteronomy is presented as an exposition of the Mosaic law revealed by Yahweh at Mount Sinai. According to the book, Moses introduced the laws of God to the new generation of Israelites in preparation for their entrance into the Promised Land. This exposition of the law was also an invitation to the people of Israel to dedicate themselves to the demands of the covenant Yahweh had established with them.

The degeneration of the religious and social life in the Northern Kingdom in the days of Amos and Hosea and the religious syncretism in Judah in the days of Manasseh promoted an abandonment of moral values and a neglect of the demands of the covenant and the ancient traditions of the nation.

In 622 B.C.E., during the renovation of the temple in the days of Josiah, king of Judah (640-609), the book of the law was found by the workers in the temple. The book found in the temple probably was an earlier version of Deuteronomy. The reading of the book affected Josiah immensely.

In a ceremony in the temple, the king invited the people to renew the covenant and to abide by the demands of the Torah of Moses. In addition to the religious reforms of the Israelite cult, there was also a reformulation of several laws to improve the plight of the destitute and the oppressed in Israelite society.

The book of Deuteronomy reflects the rise of humanism in Israel. Deuteronomy contains several new laws and many revisions of old ones dealing with the oppressed in Israel. These laws became necessary because of the changes brought by the monarchy and by the deterioration of the social structures in Israelite society.

Several aspects of the Deuteronomic reform affected women for the better. The reformulation of Mosaic laws in the days of Josiah also served to call the people who lived in the seventh century B.C.E. to hear the words of Yahweh again and to renew their commitment to the God of Israel.

The book of Deuteronomy emphasizes Israel's experience in Egypt. Deuteronomy reintroduces the laws and demands of the God who had redeemed a people from the house of servitude in Egypt to make them a special people with a universal mission. Israel was called to be a religious community where the justice of God would be manifested to the whole world.

Among the many theological emphases of the book, three deserve attention. The first was that Yahweh, the God of Israel, loved Israel with a special love, even when the nation did not deserve his love. Now Israel had to love God with their whole being (Deuteronomy 6:5).

Second, Israel had served other gods, but now Israel had to serve Yahweh exclusively (Deuteronomy 6:4). Deuteronomy emphasizes the singularity of Yahweh in the life of Israel. Finally, the book of Deuteronomy relates obedience to God to the daily life of each member of the community. Because Israel was united to God by the demands of the covenant, each member of the community had to treat another Israelite with justice.

Israel, as God's people, was a special people, a people separated from the other nations and as such, the daily life and the moral conduct among the members of the community had to reflect this relationship with God.

The demands of the covenant required personal integrity and social justice of each Israelite. The poor, the slaves, the orphans, the widows, and the other destitute persons in Israel became the beneficiaries of the changes introduced by the social reforms of Deuteronomy. In addition, there was a real effort to improve the status of women in Israelite society by emphasizing the dignity of women and by bringing them relief from some of the injustices allowed by older laws. This improvement of the status of Israelite women came by revision of older laws found in the Book of the Covenant and by the enactment of new laws directly affecting the lives of women in Israelite society.

In upcoming posts, I will demonstrate how the book of Deuteronomy is concerned with the oppressive situation of women in Israelite society. I will examine several laws and study how Deuteronomic laws revise and improve the laws in the book of Exodus to address some social injustices in Israelite society, especially injustices against women.

To be continued.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Covenant Code, Deuteronomic Laws, Deuteronomy, Israelite Laws, Women

Mount Nebo

According to the book of Deuteronomy, after Moses declared the law to Israel and after he had finished the composition of the song to be presented to Israel (Deut. 32), the song in which Moses declared God’s faithfulness and Israel’s unfaithfulness, the Lord gave Moses instructions about his death. The Lord commanded Moses to ascend the Abarim mountains and go up to Mount Nebo and there, before he died, look at the extension of the land that He was about to give Israel as its inheritance (Deut 32:49). The people of Israel had been camping near Mount Nebo since they had entered Moabite territory, after their 40 years’ journey in the wilderness.

The book of Deuteronomy provides specific details about the location of Mount Nebo. Mount Nebo was located in the land of Moab, facing the city of Jericho, in the Abarim chain of mountains, on top of Pisgah (Deut. 32:49; 34:1). Mount Nebo and Mount Pisgah were part of the chain of mountains known as Abarim (see Deut. 3:27).

Pisgah appears in Numbers 21:20 as one of the places on the itinerary of the Israelites’ march through Moabite territory and in Deuteronomy 3:17 as one of the boundaries separating the tribes of Reuben and Gad. The site of Mount Nebo has been identified with Ras es-Siyagha, a mountain between the cities of Madeba and Heshbon. As a result of archaeological excavations at Ras es-Siyagha done by the Franciscan Bible School in the early 1930s, archaeologists have excavated a Byzantine church dedicated to the memory of Moses.

According to Jennings, the church was decorated with beautiful mosaics. The church also contained a quatrefoil baptistry (a baptistry decorated with four leaflets). In addition, “elaborate pictures of trees, fruits, birds, and animals, as well as geometric motifs and dedicatory inscriptions decorated the floors" (James E. Jennings, "Nebo," The New International Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology, ed. Edward M. Blaiklock and R. K. Harrison [Grand Rapids: The Zondervan Corporation, 1983], 332).

Evidently, Mount Nebo was located near the town of Nebo, a place on the eastern side of the Jordan. The book of Joshua declares that the territory of the tribe of Reuben included "the slope of Pisgah" (Josh. 13:20). The Book of Numbers says that the mountains of Abarim were located near Nebo (Num. 33:47). This town was part of the inheritance that Moses gave to the tribe of Reuben at the time of the division of the conquered land in the eastern side of the Jordan (Num. 32:38).

Possibly, both the town and the mountain were named after the god Nebo. According to Babylonian religious tradition, Nebo was the son Marduk, the chief god in the Babylonian pantheon. This association of Nebo with the Babylonia god may explain why the author of Numbers 32:38 declared that the name of the city was changed.

There at the top of Nebo Moses was to be gathered to his ancestors. Moses was going to die in the land of Moab without entering the promised land, which had been the focus of his ministry for 40 years. Because of his disobedience in Meribah, Moses had not honored the holiness of Yahweh in the presence of Israel (Num. 20:1-13; Deut. 1:37; 4:21). For this reason, Moses would contemplate the promised land from afar, without crossing the Jordan river with the new generation of Israelites.

After he had exhorted the people of Israel to be faithful and obedient to God's laws, Moses said his farewell to the people by blessing each tribe of Israel. Then, in obedience to God’s word, Moses left the plains of Moab, where the people were camped, and went up to Mount Nebo. From the top of Mount Nebo, the Lord showed Moses all the land of Canaan, the land that Israel was about to receive as its inheritance, as God had promised to Abraham. From the top of the mountain Moses was able to look at the land of Canaan. Even though it was impossible for Moses to see the complete extension of the land, the writer of Deuteronomy described the geographic limits of the land at it existed in his own day (Deut. 34:1-3). The description of the land follows a north-south direction.

The land of Gilead was on the east side of the Jordan River. This was the land where the Transjordanian tribes lived. Dan was the northernmost limit of the land of Canaan. This part of the land was later occupied by the tribe of Dan. Naphtali, Ephraim, and Manasseh represented the central part of the land. Judah was the southern limit. The Western Sea was the Mediterranean. Jericho, the city of palms (Josh. 6:16, 21; Judges 1:16), was the first city the Israelites conquered after they crossed the Jordan River. Zoar was situated at the south of the Dead Sea. The Negev was the wilderness of south Judah. After he was shown the extension of the promised land, Moses died in the land of Moab and was buried in a valley opposite Beth-Peor. Beth-Peor was the name of the valley where the Israelites had set their camp in preparation for crossing the Jordan River (Deut. 3:29; 4:46).

Thus, Mount Nebo is the site of an important event in Moses’ life and in the children of Israel’s life.

Note:

This article was published in the Biblical Illustrator (Fall 1999): 56-58. The Biblical Illustrator is published by Lifeway.com.

Claude F. Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Abarim, Deuteronomy, Moses, Mount Nebo, Pisga

A God So Near

The following book review was published in Review and Expositor 101 (2004): 782-784.

A God So Near: Essays on Old Testament Theology in Honor of Patrick D. Miller, ed. by Brent S. Strawn and Nancy R. Bowen. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003. xviii + 439 pp. $47.50. ISBN 1-57506-067-1.

This volume contains a collection of twenty-four essays dedicated to Patrick D. Miller, Charles T. Haley Professor of Old Testament Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. Professor Miller has made significant contributions to the study of the Psalms and the book of Deuteronomy. The essays written in Miller’s honor reflect the interest of the honoree. The articles deal with the books of Psalms and Deuteronomy and other topics that are related to the main focus of the festschrift. The theological emphasis of many of the articles reflects Miller’s concern to bring together the work of academia and the work of the church.

The book is divided into two sections. Part I, entitled “‘Near Whenever We Call’: God’s Nearness in Israel’s Crying Out (The Psalms and Beyond),” contains the following essays:

“Reading the Lament Psalms Backwards” by H. G. M. Williamson (pp. 3-15); “‘Without Our Aid He Did Us Make’: Singing the Meaning of the Psalms” by W. Sibley Towner (pp. 17-34); “The So-Called Elohist Psalter: A New Solution for an Old Problem” by Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger (pp. 35-51); “A Fairy Tale Wedding: A Feminist Intertextual Reading of Psalm 45” by Nancy R. Bowen (pp. 53-71); “Notes on Psalm 93: A Fragment of a Liturgical Poem Affirming Yahweh’s Kingship” by Frank Moore Cross (pp. 73-77); “There the Blessing: An Exposition of Psalm 133” by James Luther Mays (pp. 79-90); “Certainty, Ambiguity, and Trust: Knowledge of God in Psalm 139” by Carolyn Pressler (pp. 91-99); “Quoth the Raven: Psalm 147 and the Environment” by James Limburg (pp. 101-111); “Prayer and/a Self-Address: The Case of Hanna” by J. Gerald Janzen (pp. 113-27); “Naomi’s Cry: Reflection on Ruth 1:20-21” by Katharine Doob Sakenfeld (pp. 129-43); “Jonah 2: A Prayer Out of the Deep” by Gerhard Sauter (pp. 145-52); “Songs in a New Key: The Psalmic Structure of the Chronicler’s Hymn (1 Chr 16:8-36)” by Mark A. Throntveit (pp. 153-70); and “Wild, Raging Creativity: The Scene in the Whirlwind (Job 38-41)” by Kathleen M. O’Connor (pp. 171-179).

Part II, entitled “‘As Just as This Entire Law’: God’s Nearness in the Torah (Deuteronomy and Beyond),” contains the following essays:

“Law in the Service of Life: A Dynamic Understanding of Law in Deuteronomy” by Terence E. Fretheim (pp. 183-200); “How Does Deuteronomy Do Theology? Literary Juxtaposition and Paradox in the New Moab Covenant in Deuteronomy 29-32” by Dennis T. Olson (pp. 201-213); “Keep/Observe/Do–Carefully–Today! The Rhetoric of Repetition in Deuteronomy” by Brent A. Strawn (pp. 215-40); “Divine Warrior Theology in Deuteronomy” by Richard D. Nelson (pp. 241-59); “Reading Deuteronomy 5 as Narrative” by Norbert Lohfink (pp. 261-81); “The Travail of Pardon: Reflections on slH” by Walter Brueggemann (pp. 283-97); “Circumcision of the Heart: The Journey of a Biblical Metaphor” by Werner E. Lemke (pp. 299-319); “Huldah, the Prophet: Reading a (Deuteronomistic) Woman’s Identity” by Renita J. Weems (pp. 321-39); “Prophets and Kings: A New Look at the Royal Persecution of Prophets against Its Near Eastern Background” by J. J. M. Roberts (pp. 341-54); “From Mountain to Mountain: The Reign of God in Daniel 2” C. L. Seow (pp. 355-74); and “Sola Scriptura? The Authority of the Bible in Pluralistic Environments” by Michael Welker (pp. 375-391).

The book concludes with a bibliography of the works of Patrick Miller written by Brent A. Strawn covering the years 1964-2001 (pp. 393-416). The 372 entries in the bibliography demonstrate the breadth and scope of Miller’s work and the influence he has exerted in Old Testament studies. The book also includes an index of authors and an index of Scriptures cited.

Because of limitations only a few articles are discussed here. Williamson’s essay begins the collection by offering an alternative interpretation to the accepted view that the psalms of a lament should be read from the perspective of the actual time of the suffering of the psalmist. He proposes the view that many of the psalms of lament should be understood from the situation presented at the end of these psalms. Thus, according to Williamson, the psalms of lament should be understood from the context of thanksgiving and celebration that arises after deliverance has been experienced and at the time the payment of the vows the psalmist had promised is made.

Fretheim’s article deals with a dynamic understanding of the laws of the Pentateuch and how individual laws can be applied to Christian faith and practice. Fretheim sees the laws of the Pentateuch as a gracious gift of God to Israel. These laws were given to Israel “for the sake of life, health, and well-being of individuals in community” (p. 184). Since life changes with time, the laws of the Pentateuch cannot be understood as unchangeable. The book of Deuteronomy offers many changes to the laws in the Book of the Covenant. These changes reflect the way God deals with his people. Since Christians also deal with the laws of the Pentateuch, Christians must study each and every law of the Pentateuch in order to discover whether these laws contribute to the health and well-being of the community.

Walter Brueggemann discusses the theme of Israel’s disobedience and divine pardon. Although Yahweh is known as a God who pardons the iniquity of his people, his pardon is not readily granted. Brueggemann declares that the issue of pardon is not a primary emphasis in Deuteronomy, for Israel was expected to obey the demands of the Law. The consequences of disobedience would be judgment and exile and Deuteronomy emphasizes that Yahweh was “unwilling to pardon” (Deut. 29:20) those who abandoned Yahweh to follow other gods This unwillingness to pardon was reaffirmed to Israel because of this sins of Manasseh. Brueggemann studies the biblical material to discover whether the concept of pardon was a theme in the theology of exile. At the end of his study, Brueggemann discovers that the biblical material concerning divine pardon goes from “absolute rejection . . . to a bid for repentance . . . through an insistence on the cruciality of obedience without pardon . . . to a full, unilateral pardon without reference to repentance” (p. 293).

These and the other essays contributed to this festschrift merit careful study for the contribution they make to Old Testament scholarship. The essays are a fitting recognition of the life and work of Patrick Miller and of the impact he has made on the life of his students and on those who admire his works.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Deuteronomy, Patrick Miller, Pentateuch